A study of MPEG-4 rate control scheme and its improvements

Author

Pan, Feng ; Li, Z. ; Lim, K. ; Feng, G.

Author_Institution

Inst. for Infocomm Res., Singapore

Volume

13

Issue

5

fYear

2003

fDate

5/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

440

Lastpage

446

Abstract

This paper discusses some practical issues in implementing the MPEG-4 Q2 rate-control scheme, and proposes a number of ways to improve it. The improved algorithm has the following main features: (1) the bits allocated to each P-frame or B-frame are in proportion to its distance from the end this GOP. i.e., more bits are allocated to the frames that are nearer to their reference I-frame; (2) the target buffer level is a function of the frame position in the GOP, so that it will be achieved gracefully at the end of a GOP; and (3) the quantization value of an I-frame is decided based on its spatial complexity. Experimental results show that the improved rate-control scheme has significantly reduced the occurrence of frame skipping, increased the average PSNR by up to 0.6 dB, and improved the perceptual quality of the reconstructed video.

Keywords

code standards; data compression; image reconstruction; image sequences; quantisation (signal); telecommunication control; telecommunication standards; video coding; B-frame; GOP; MPEG-4 rate control; P-frame; average PSNR; bits allocation; buffer level; frame position; frame skipping; perceptual quality; quantization level; reconstructed video; reference I-frame; spatial complexity; video coding; Bandwidth; Bit rate; MPEG 4 Standard; PSNR; Quantization; Rate-distortion; Safety; Sun; Surges; Video coding;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8215

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TCSVT.2003.811603

Filename

1201118